1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to the field of radial arm saws and radial saw accessories. More particularly, this invention relates to a passive sawdust removal apparatus for preventing the buildup of sawdust at the fence of a radial saw. The device requires no vacuum source to operate.
2. BACKGROUND
The radial arm saw is a popular tool for woodworking which provides many known advantages to the user including relative ease in making properly aligned precision straight cuts. Unfortunately, it also has the problem that the direction and nature of the blade's rotation causes sawdust to build up adjacent the fence used to position wood for such precision cuts. The radial arm saw is especially prone to such sawdust buildup due to the position of the blade above the table. When performing precision wood crafting, even a small buildup of sawdust along the fence can have a major impact upon the appearance, fit and value of the finished product. Also, with the ever increasing cost and decreasing supply of fine woods, erronous cuts can prove quite costly.
Several attempts have been made at minimizing sawdust buildup in power tools such as the radial saw and table saw. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,995 to Connor shows a lower cover for a table saw which surrounds the lower part of the saw blade. The cover is coupled to a vacuum cleaner to pull sawdust away from the table. Similar devices may also be available for radial saws to pull sawdust from the blade area.
While such devices are relatively effective and provide significant improvement over saws which are not so equipped, it is virtually impossible to vacuum all such debris away from the saw blade and off the table automatically due to the high speed rotation of the blade. Since even very small amounts of such debris can result in expensive cutting errors, such vacuum accessories are not wholly acceptable. Also, such vacuum powered accessories are relatively expensive and may consume significant amounts of electricity. These disadvantages are significantly alleviated by use of the present invention.